


(in)Visible

by 13starbuck42



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feels, Post-Episode: s06e12 One Son, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 13:18:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13starbuck42/pseuds/13starbuck42
Summary: Scully finally unleashes her true feelings about The Fowl One...





	(in)Visible

He turns up at her door, late. He took a cab from his apartment because he’d had too many beers, which was actually okay because she’d made friends with a bottle of wine. 

She finally answers his incessant knocking, near-empty bottle of merlot hanging precariously from her hand, fingers looped around the neck. Her black leggings are bunched up around her shapely calves and her hair is uncharacteristically mussed, wild curls framing her face. She is also wearing one of his t-shirts, which makes his knees weak. 

He isn’t surprised to find her like this, though. Not tonight. 

She opens the door and walks away, leaving him to fend for himself. She says nothing, doesn’t even make eye contact. He watches her collapse on the couch, bottle still in hand, and prop her feet up on the coffee table. Mulder shrugs and steps inside, closing the door and toeing out of his shoes. He makes for the kitchen, and when she hears him rummaging for a wine glass, she calls out. “Don’ bother. Bottle’s fine.” Her words are lazy, slow like molasses. He abandons his search and joins her, setting his feet to rest next to hers. 

Scully points the mouth of the bottle at him, raising an eyebrow. He sips, tasting dark cherry and a spice he can’t quite identify. Sips again, and when his mouth has acclimated he takes a longer pull from the bottle, a swig meant for beer, but it doesn’t matter. He passes it back to her, but she shakes her head against the back of the couch and crosses her arms across her chest, so he sets it between their feet on the coffee table. Mulder looks at her feet, admiring the graceful slope of her arches, and can’t help smiling when he notices that her toenails are painted a deep ruby red. 

She still hasn’t looked him in the eye. He knows she’s upset; it’s why he’s here, late and buzzed on Shiner Bock. He can’t stand it when she’s upset.

“You’re mad,” he says, tentatively. “Scully…”

“Mulder, shut the fuck up,” she says deliberately, calculated and cold. Her voice is clear now, and she is just as emboldened by the wine as she is by her own desire to have this out once and for all. To yell at him, hear him yell back. She sits up and turns to face him, putting one foot on the floor, wedging the other under the crook of her knee. 

“I’m not mad.” Pause, deep breath. “I’m furious, actually. I… I’m angry, and I’m hurt and you know what Mulder, I even think I might be jealous.” She stops, sucking in a breath. She hadn’t meant to say it, not all of it, but she can’t take it back now. She recognizes the feeling rising in her chest as catharsis, not panic. Mulder is silent, but he doesn’t look away. In that moment she knows how this will end, but it doesn’t stop her from continuing her discourse. Her voice is several decibels louder than necessary now, but she no longer cares. He will hear her. 

“You shushed me, Mulder! Cut me off, at Fort Marlene. I was taken against my will - we were taken - with no explanation! I wanted some goddamn answers and you actually had the audacity to fucking shush me!” She huffs, face red with anger, eyes wide with incredulity; she still can’t believe it. She reaches for the wine and takes a long pull from the bottle, fortifying herself before diving back in for more. 

“You and Diana discovered the x-files together. You have history, you know her. That much I understand. But you trust her, and you do so blindly, Mulder.” She shakes her head. “That’s what I can’t understand. Don’t you realize that she materializes only when you are close to the truth? It’s not just coincidence, damnit!” She feels like a broken record, saying the same things again and again, and it only fuels the fire in her. 

Scully stands up in the space between the couch and the coffee table. She turns to face him, wild-eyed and indignant, pointing and throwing her arms wide in emphasis. “She shows up when it’s of interest to her, Mulder, not you. She’s given you nothing of significance to go on. She has some hidden agenda, some ulterior motive. I don’t know what it is, and I can’t prove it, but I just can’t trust her the way you do. I can’t. I won’t.”

“Scu--” 

“No. Not finished,” she cuts him off now. I have seen things, because of you. I’ve heard things, and done things, and… and I’ve had things done to me, Mulder. I - we - have uncovered so many truths and lies, together. I have tried to be someone you can rely on. I have done my best to listen, to understand, to… to be someone you can trust, and I thought I was. I have tried for years now to be that person, Mulder, but today… today you didn’t even listen to what I had to say. You questioned me in a way you never have before. You doubted me; you challenged me! You didn’t hear a word I said, because you chose not to. I thought we were fighting this fight together, but you’re working against me. Am I so insignificant to you? So fucking trivial and meaningless that you would throw away our work and, and… and our relationship, this trust we’ve built - on a whim? To be at the beck and call of Diana Fowley?!” 

Her voice falls, barely above a whisper. “Your cause has become my cause, Mulder, but now you’ve abandoned me. She appears and I become invisible to you.” 

Mulder recalls the way she had stormed out on him and the Gunmen. He had accused her of making it personal. “Because it is personal, Mulder,” she’s said. “Because without the FBI, personal interest is all that I have. And if you take that away from me then there is no reason for me to to continue.” 

Scully sits down hard on the couch, tears spilling from her eyes. She turns away from him, leans forward and buries her face in her hands. She swipes at her cheeks, tries to erase the hard evidence of her emotions. 

This is why he’d taken a cab across town. Because it is personal.

Mulder reaches out and gently touches her shoulder. She shrugs him off, sniffling, trying and failing to control herself. She feels defeated, more vulnerable than she’d care to admit. She doesn’t enjoy wearing her heart on her sleeve, especially when it comes to Mulder. But he’s here now, this is happening, and he’d better be fucking listening.

Mulder closes his eyes, breathing deeply, trying to analyze the rage Scully has just unleashed. He realizes he’s profiling her, something he swore long ago he’d never do, but he can’t help it now. She has bared her soul to him, something that she does not do often or easily, and he is desperate to ease her ache, to make things right. 

“I won’t fight this fight without you, Scully. And I can’t - I won’t - fight it with anyone else. Not with the Gunmen, not with Skinner, or Spender. And not with Diana. You’re the only one that matters to me.” 

“Mulder…” she says, shaking her head. But she knows he’s right, in her heart of hearts she believes it. Because she’s heard him say this before, some variation or another, time and again. In Alaska, at the beginning, when they’d hardly known each other, locked in that little room. At the hospital, when she’d been returned from her abduction. In Maryland, when she was paranoid, didn’t trust him… he’d trusted her, made her trust him again. When she had cancer, he’d believed in her, done unspeakable things to heal her. In Texas; in his hallway after Texas, when he’d begged her to stay… Hell, he’d gone to Antarctica to find her, to save her, to bring her home. 

Her resolve is crumbling piece by piece, memory by memory, because she knows now that her fears are unfounded. She knows he will fix this; they will fix this. She waits for him to say it, to tell her she is wrong. Waits for him to say something, anything; she waits for minutes or hours or days. 

When she can wait no longer, she lifts her head to look at him. He is sitting there, right next to her. He is facing her, his hand resting resting at the small of her back , his eyes searching for her, and she wonders how he managed all of that without her noticing. His lips are inches away and he kisses her. Softly, but without hesitation. She pulls away, confused, and feels the pressure of his hand on her back, gently coaxing her to turn toward him. She obliges, though she’s not sure why, and stares down at her fingers as they trace and fold the hem of her t-shirt. 

Mulder reaches for her again, this time taking her face in his hand, thumb gently caressing the soft spot just in front of her ear, his long fingers reaching around to anchor at her neck. He gazes at her - yes, truly gazes at her. Scully tilts her head, raises an eyebrow, like she’s done so many times before. Waiting. 

Finally, finally, he speaks. His voice is deep, soothing, full-bodied like the merlot on the coffee table. 

“I have known Diana for a long time. Do I trust her? Yes. I do, Scully, but not blindly. I question her, and doubt her, and challenge her - because I have to, in order to know the truth, in order to extract it from the lies. She has to prove it to me, every single time.” He shakes his head, reaches for her hands, stilling their work on her t-shirt. “It’s different with you, Scully. There are no lies to sort through, only the truth. I just… know, with you” he shrugs his shoulders, closing his eyes for just a moment as if he’s willing her to understand. When he continues, his throat is thick with emotion. “It’s you I trust. How can you not see that? After all the cases, after Texas, and Antarctica…? Blindly, implicitly, with every fiber of my being, Scully - I trust you, only you. There will never be anyone else. I’m sorry I gave you cause to doubt that. I am so, so sorry.” 

Mulder reaches for her now, pulling her into his lap, holding her to him. She tucks herself up under his chin, resting it against his chest, and he kisses the top of her head. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, and she feels him sigh heavily. 

“I just needed to hear you say it,” she tells him. 

Scully shifts her body and leans into him, gently pushing him back to lie on the couch. She snuggles in, pressed between Mulder and the back of the couch. Her knee goes over his thigh, their limbs tangle. She rests her hand on his chest, stroking languid circles and abstract patterns with her fingertips before he covers them with his own, squeezing gently. 

“You are never invisible to me, Scully. You’re the only thing I see.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: Mulder discovers how jealous Scully is of Diana... he takes it upon himself to make sure she knows how important she is to him.


End file.
